BSNL tower co to bring higher revenue: Sinha

Telecom minister Manoj Sinha today said the Cabinet approval for separating mobile tower assets of BSNL will exploit the full potential of the PSU's 66,000 towers and in turn would raise new streams of revenue.

"The move is aimed at harnessing full potential (of the tower assets of BSNL). Bharat Sanchar has a tenancy ratio of 1.14 as compared to 1.9 of the private operators. This will increase BSNL's tenancy ratio and other telcos can utilise BSNL towers", he said at the cabinet briefing.

Sinha said Telecom tower industry is now a big business. All private operators have separate tower companies. Cabinet approved separating mobile tower assets (15% of the total towers in the country) is aimed at harnessing the full potential. About 1614 BSNL and DoT employees will go on deputation and this entire process will be completed in 2 years. As the tower business of BSNL grows, more hiring will take place.

Later he tweeted an independent, dedicated tower company of BSNL with a focused approach will lead to rise in external tenancy & higher revenue for the new company. Around 4.4 Lakhs Mobile towers in the country, out of which more than 66K mobile towers are of BSNL.

Indus Towers, the world’s largest telecom tower company with over 122,000 towers is in India and is split among Airtel (42%), Idea (11.15%), Voda (42%) with Providence owning the rest.